Bring Back Earmarks

July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Do we miss earmarks yet? Though it’s
only July, the second session of the 112th U.S. Congress already
threatens to eclipse the first in wholesale anomie. It took
Congress months to pass even that most rudimentary conveyor of
pork -- a transportation bill -- and that constituted a rare
success.

Earmarks were accused of many ills over the years, but
never of aiding and abetting such deep paralysis. If anything,
they greased the gears of the Capitol, enabling even a broken-down legislative machine to spit out appropriations for road
repair every so often. Was that so bad?

For something so reviled, earmarks can be surprisingly
difficult to define. They are federal spending -- good, bad or
otherwise -- targeted to a specific legislator’s district,
allies or pet interest, often without the need for a competitive
bid. The “Bridge to Nowhere” began not as a metaphor but as a
steel-encased boondoggle planned in remote Alaska with a price
tag of $398 million.

By 2005, when the congressional earmark-fest was at its
rowdiest, the House Appropriations Committee received almost
35,000 earmark requests, more than 80 for each member of the
House. Congress produced three times as many earmarks that year
as in 1994. In 2006, earmark spending peaked at $67 billion.

Fallout from the scandals of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and
others, along with negative publicity about the “Bridge to
Nowhere” and its ilk, eventually spooked Washington out of a bad
habit. When Democrats took over the House in 2007, they
instituted a rule change requiring disclosure of the names of
earmark sponsors, a justification of the expense and a vow that
the sponsor wouldn’t benefit financially. After taking over the
House in 2011, Republicans swore off earmarks altogether.

Partisan Friction

Partisanship may be a national phenomenon; politics retains
a local heartbeat. Passing a national transportation bill, for
example, is a lot easier when the goodies are strategically
dispersed to individual members’ districts, giving each a
personal stake in the bill’s success.

The lack of earmarks may not be a significant contributor
to the friction in Congress. But it doesn’t help. Besides, with
no earmarks to award to local projects, legislators have a huge
incentive to work behind closed doors, privately pressuring
executive branch agencies to direct money to preferred
recipients. A July 26 Bloomberg News report details a House vote
in favor of continuing production of the Abrams battle tank over
the Army’s objections. The cost of this earmark-by-another-name,
a Cold War relic designed to confront Soviet forces, could be
more than $2 billion. (It turns out the absence of earmarks
isn’t so cheap either.)

In the interest of transparency, comity and public
improvements -- roads and bridges need maintenance sooner or
later -- we propose an end to the ban on earmarks, albeit with a
twist.

Resurrect the reforms instituted in 2007 before the ban.
Then, in addition to compelling earmark sponsors to disclose
their names, provide a written rationale for the expense and
swear that they will not profit financially from the project,
ask them to do one more thing: find a sponsor from the other
party.

Such a rule would accomplish two goals. First, it would
require an earmark to pass a merit threshold. An earmark’s value
would have to be sufficiently defensible that a member of the
opposing party would be willing to endorse it. Second, it would
be a spur to bipartisanship, even if it takes the form of horse-trading, with members swapping endorsements for each others’
earmarks.

Congressional Norms

The ways of Congress are not all set in marble. Norms of
conduct have evolved over the years to help the place function.
Senate filibusters, for example, were long reserved for special
circumstances. Now they are deployed routinely, making the
Senate less functional and democratic.

If Congress is to emerge from its current trauma, it will
have to adopt new norms that discourage destructive partisanship
and reward conduct in the public interest. It’s in that spirit
that we propose the return of earmarks, with the stipulation
that bipartisanship be stuffed into the sausage. The demand
among lawmakers for earmarks is strong. If that need can be
channeled to advance good public investments while also reducing
partisan friction, the price will be a bargain.

Today’s highlights: In a special signed editorial, Michael R.
Bloomberg on the long road to sane gun policies.

Also, the editors on bringing back earmarks and on easing
austerity in the U.K.; Jonathan Alter on the collective effort
to “build that”; Stephen L. Carter on why all NCAA punishments
should be as harsh as Penn State’s; Jeffrey Goldberg on why
Obama would be better than Romney on Iran; Pankaj Mishra on the
challenge of Asian state capitalism; William Pesek on U.S.-China
relations; Jonathan Weil on the conflicts of interest at Freddie
Mac; Kim Schoenholtz and Lawrence White on remaking Libor.